Hydrated reverse micelles

In a liquid/liquid biphasic system (Figure 9.1a), the enzyme is in the aqueous phase, whereas the hydrophobic compounds are in the organic phase. In pure organic solvent (Figure 9.1b) a solid enzyme preparation is suspended in the solvent, making it a liquid/solid biphasic system. In a micellar system, the enzyme is entrapped in a hydrated reverse micelle within a homogeneous organic solvent... 

The enzyme molecules can be contained in the water cores of hydrated reverse micelles or microemulsion droplets. 

The majority of practical micellar systems of Tionnal micelles use water as tire main solvent. Reverse micelles use water immiscible organic solvents, altlrough tire cores of reverse micelles are usually hydrated and may contain considerable quantities of water. Polar solvents such as glycerol, etlrylene glycol, fonnamide and hydrazine are now being used instead of water to support regular micelles [10]. Critical fluids such as critical carbon dioxide are... 

Sodium octanoate (NaO) forms reversed micelles not only in hydrocarbons but also in 1-hexanol/water. The hydration of the ionogenic NaO headgroups plays an important role in this case too. For this reason Fujii et al. 64) studied the dynamic behaviour of these headgroups and the influence of hydration-water with l3C and 23Na NMR measurements. Below w0 = [H20]/[NaO] 6 the 23Na line-width... 

As mentioned above, water structure in reversed micelles deviates considerably from the structure in the bulk-phase. Therefore, the hydration shell of macromolecules entrapped in reversed micellar systems should be changed and thus also their conformation. According to the results of several authors this is indeed the case. 

The effects of the intramicellar confinement of polar and amphiphilic species in nanoscopic domains dispersed in an apolar solvent on their physicochemical properties (electronic structure, density, dielectric constant, phase diagram, reactivity, etc.) have received considerable attention [51,52]. hi particular, the properties of water confined in reversed micelles have been widely investigated, since it simulates water hydrating enzymes or encapsulated in biological environments [13,23,53-59]. 

FIG. 4 Onion model of spherical water-containing reversed micelles. Solvent molecules are not represented. A, surfactant alkyl chain domain B, head group plus hydration water domain C, hulk water domain. (For water-containing AOT-reversed micelles, the approximate thickness of layer A is 1.5 nm, of layer B is 0.4 nm, whereas the radius of C is given hy the equation r = 0.17R nm.)... 

For many solubilized enzymes the greatest catalytic activity and/or changes in conformation are found at R < 12, namely, when the competition for the water in the system between surfactant head groups and biopolymers is strong. This emphasizes the importance of the hydration water surrounding the biopolymer on its reactivity and conformation [13], It has been reported that enzymes incorporated in the aqueous polar core of the reversed micelles are protected against denaturation and that the distribution of some proteins, such as chymotrypsine, ribonuclease, and cytochrome c, is well described by a Poisson distribution. The protein state and reactivity were found markedly different from those observed in bulk aqueous solution [178,179],... 

The amount of water solubilized in a reverse micelle solution is commonly referred to as W, the molar ratio of water to surfactant, and this is also a good qualitative indicator of micelle size. This is an extremely important parameter since it will determine the number of surfactant molecules per micelle and is the main factor affecting micelle size. For an (AOT)/iso-octane/H20 system, the maximum Wq is around 60 [16], and above this value the transparent reverse micelle solution becomes a turbid emulsion, and phase separation may occur. The effect of salt type and concentration on water solubilization is important. Cations with a smaller hydration size, but the same ionic charge, result in less solubilization than cations with a large hydration size [17,18]. Micelle size depends on the salt type and concentration, solvent, surfactant type and concentration, and also temperature. 

Hydrates have further applications in bioengineering through the research of John and coworkers (Rao et al., 1990 Nguyen, 1991 Nguyen et al., 1991, 1993 Phillips et al., 1991). These workers have used hydrates in reversed micelles (water-in-oil emulsions) to dehydrate protein solutions for recovery and for optimization of enzyme activity, at nondestructive and low-energy conditions. 

Nguyen, H.T., Clathrate Hydrate Formation and Protein Solubilization in Reversed Micelles, Ph.D. Thesis, Tulane University, LA (1991). 

FIGURE 28.1 Chemical modification of the protein with a water-insoluble reagent in the reverse micelles of Aerosol OT in octane. The protein molecule is entrapped in the reverse micelle surrounded by a cover of hydrated surfactant molecules. The water-insoluble reagent is located in the bulk organic phase and can be incorporated into the micelle surface layer coming into contact with the reactive group in the protein. After completion of the reaction the reverse micelle system is disintegrated and the protein is precipitated by cold acetone. 

Three main effects are universal and do not depend on the system studied. The favorable effect of a cation on third-phase formation is measured by the slope of the energy of attraction between the reverse micelles plotted versus the cation concentration in the organic phase or the total nitrate concentration for different salt. Whatever the nature of the extracted cations, third-phase formation is observed when the energy of attraction is near 2kBT. Finally, the tendency toward phase splitting correlates well with the hydration enthalpy of the cations. 

The characteristics of the water pool of reverse micelles has been explored by H, 23Na, 13C, 3IP-NMR spectroscopy. Since the initial association process in RMs is not totally understood, and because of the low CMC, aggregation studies from NMR are rather scarce. Direct determination of a CMC in the diethyl hexyl phosphate /water/benzene system (at Wo = 3.5) was possible because the chemical shift of 31P in phosphate groups is very sensitive to hydration effects. The structure and state of water in RMs and particularly at low water content has received considerable attention. The proton chemical shifts have been explored in AOT/water/heptane, methanol, chloroform, isooctane and cyclohexanone. The water behavior in small reverse micelles is close to that of the corresponding bulk ionic solution. Until now, the effect of a solute on micellar structure was not well... 

It is generally accepted that the soft-core RMs contain amounts of water equal to or less than hydration of water of the polar part of the surfactant molecules, whereas in microemulsions the water properties are close to those of the bulk water (Fendler, 1984). At relatively small water to surfactant ratios (Wo < 5), all water molecules are tightly bound to the surfactant headgroups at the soft-core reverse micelles. These water molecules have high viscosities, low mobilities, polarities which are similar to hydrocarbons, and altered pHs. The solubilization properties of these two systems should clearly be different (El Seoud, 1984). The advantage of the RMs is their thermodynamic stability and the very small scale of the microstructure 1 to 20 nm. The radii of the emulsion droplets are typically 100 nm (Fendler, 1984 El Seoud, 1984). 

The water in the RMs is considered to be a composite of two different types the "bound water" region, and the remaining "free water" region. On the basis of the IR data up to a Wo = 4, the water solvates the AOT ion-pair, further increasing in the water concentration up to a Wo = 10, probably giving rise to a hydration shell around the new-separated ions of AOT. Further increasing water concentration gives rise to the so called "free water". It has been shown by various physico-chemical techniques that the water of the reverse micelle behaves differently from normal water, especially at low concentrations (Wo < 10). Solubilization of water by such micelles promotes dissociation of ion pairs in the micelle to form micellar free ions. 

Table 3.2. The physical properties of water in the water pool (WP) in reverse micelles of sodium bis-2-ethylhexyl sulfosuccinate (Aerosol OT or AOT) in isooctane. The spectroscopic properties of the hydrated electrons (e"aq) in the micellar water pool (Wo)...

Hydrated electron probe inverse micelles. Hydrated electrons (e aq) are expected to be a very good probe to test the water pool of reverse micelles. The physical properties of hydrated electrons obtained by pulse radiolysis in AOT reverse micelles were experimentally determined (Calvo-Perezet al., 1981 Pileni,... 

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